>> maybe if he'll take a valium and calm down and come talk to us, it might be helpful. >> plus, is tim geithner working on an exit strategy? leon panetta, the pentagon says hello to the new man in charge. plus education nation, education secretary arne duncan gets personal in aspen. >> lebron or kobe? >> kobe. good day, i'm andrea mitchell, live in aspen, and we begin with the bombshell that may blow up the sexual assault case against former imf chief dominique strauss-kahn. the da now says the accuser address m admits she lied about what happened after the attack. he was released on his own recognizance today and it could

open the door to releasing the charges altogether. but her attorney says she stands by her story. >> the victim, from day one, has described a violent sexual assault that dominique strauss-kahn committed against her. she has described that sexual assault many times to the prosecutors and to me. and she has never once changed a single thing about that account. >> patently false. i think if he were being accurate, i don't think the district attorney's office would have moved to completely exonerate his bail. i think there's an agenda here, ours is to see that justice is served in this case and he has a client who has a financial interest in making this case something that it's not.

>> ron allen is live in new york with the latest astounding developments, developments that have repercussions in terms of foreign policy, international, global finance, and, of course, the french presidency. but more importantly, right now it is a criminal case in the new york court, and this is a huge setback for a prosecution and potential tragedy for all concerned. >> reporter: interesting you point out those global issues. people in europe are still talking about this case, yesterday, of course they're talking about it even more so today. it it's really hard to know what to make of where things go from this point forward. the district attorney here, cyrus vance, jr., spoke. he said the charges still stand. he said that the investigation would continue, and that the -- they go where the facts seem to lead. but he's said there are credibility issues with the alleged victim. dock neek strauss-kahn's attorneys say there's been a

rush to judgment, they've been saying that all along, and this points that out. and the attorney for the alleged victim spoke the longest, and the most vehemently. he said that she will now come forward to talk to the press, to talk to the public, to tell her side of the story. and he says the bottom line is that regardless of what happened to her before this, regardless of what happened to her after this, the bottom line, he claims that she was still a victim of a violent attack, and she insists the prosecution of this case should go forward. >> ron allen, we'll obviously be following this throughout the day, tonight and in the future. thanks, ron. for more on the sturning turn of events in this case, let's bring in editorial director of the peterson i institute for economics, reporting from washington. what do you make of this? there was already a complete cultural divide between france and the united states on this issue and it raised huge questions just about the male/female gender divide, and

now we have this, strauss-kahn no longer under house arrest, no longer this huge bail, free on his own recognizance. it's clear this has not been what it seemed. >> thanks, andrea. i think that divide is going to continue, but not only on cultural and sexual and male and female gender issues, but also the credibility of the criminal justice system. the french were very dubious about the rush to judgment, but maybe they will now see that at least the prosecutors were willing to confront evidence that contradicted their case, and they took the initiative, it appears, to let him go out of house arrest. but i think in terms of the international monetary fund, which strauss-kahn was forced, in effect, to resign from, this is water under the bridge. the fund has new leadership, it faces grave crises in europe and

elsewhere. whether it's water under the bridge for french politics and french/american relations is another question. >> do you think there is any chance, if he is exonerated of these charges, private sexual behavior is another question. but if he's exonerated of the criminal charges, do you think there's any political future? because he was the leading contender to challenge sarkozy and was in fact returning to france to launch that campaign when all of this happened. >> it's difficult to speculate on that, andrea. but i do note from the news reports that his supporters in in france are talking about reviving his candidacy, which, if he's exonerated, would seem to make that possible. on the other hand, if you read "the new york times" this morning, it said that there was some kind of a sexual encounter, and there was physical evidence of such an encounter, so his future in french politics may depend on the nature of that

encounter, which we don't know yet. it's murky and it may remain murky. >> well, the charges have not yet been reduced, but certainly this signals -- what happened today in court, does signal that the accusations are on much less solid ground and if anything this might end up being a misdemeanor. still he's not allowed to -- yeah? >> i see. as a practical matter, you know, you're talking about a jury in new york. okay? and it's going to be very hard to convict somebody if his only accuser is somebody whose credibility has been damaged. but on the other hand, if there's evidence of a physical encounter of some kind, that's going to weigh, even if it ends up not being a factor in a criminal charge, that's going to weigh on his political future. don't you think? >> indeed. well, fascinating case, but again, the human drama behind it

all is sort of overwhelming. it's what reminds us that we should not -- >> it's shocking. >> it's shocking and people should not rush to judgment. thank you so much for joining us. >> i was just going to say, for anybody in the news business, it's a humbling episode as well. >> exactly. it is a teaching moment, unfortunate live at the expense of the real people involved. and thanks, steve. tim geithner now says that august 2nd is a real deadline to raise the debt ceiling or else the u.s. will go into default and face potentially catastrophic results. republicans say geithner is crying wolf. chuck todd, kelly o'donnell, capitol hill correspondent, both join us now. chuck, first to you. the white house says that the deal has to be done by july 22nd in order to get it passed by august 2nd. they say it is a real deadline.

address that and also of course the talk about whether or not tim geithner, now that we know his son is going to return to high school, they never were able to sell their house in west chester county, new york. whether or not he's looking for an exit strategy. >> let's take on first the part about the july 22nd deadline. this is, according to the way the white house puts it, is that this is the only way, if you want to meet august 2nd, you've got to get it basically done by july 22nd, because to get the bills written, to get them marked up, to get them passed through both the house and the senate, get those three-day waiting period, you put all that together and essentially that's what they're saying, that in order to get to august 2nd you need to back it up. so that's how they've come up with july 22nd. now, over the next few days, we are expected to hear from the treasury department about a new estimate of when we hear the debt ceiling. one of the reasons the number has been moving is because tax

receipts, because of the slowly-improving economy, have actually increased, and that is why it's shifted, for instance, from may as it was when the year started, to now august 2nd. the assumption is it will be somewhere around maybe the 9th or the 10th. now, as for the geithner speculati speculation, this is more personal than professional, and it's my understanding he's not necessarily looking to leave, it's just that there's some pressure being put on at home that might be doing that, that he himself doesn't want to leave. i can tell you this, there's going to be a lot of pressure on him not to leave. bal because the last thing this white house needs going into a presidential election is a confirmation hearing on the president's economic and stimulus policies. that will be a nightmare. and that is what this white house will be very worried about. that's why you heard geithner quickly quash that yesterday with bill clinton. >> and, of course, there would be no way to get anyone else confirmed in election cycle. kelly o'donnell, that brings us

to capitol hill. first of all, the strong reaction up there to the rhetoric of the president that took place at the news conference, republicans really reacting strongly. is this just more theater, or are they really offended by the way the president took them on? >> there certainly is a theater quality to it, but underneath that, there really is a frustration, even an anger. possibly even a resentment, if you want to go that far, that they believe the president is not being realistic. they're trying to say that something that would include tax increases in order to come to a deal would not pass the house where there are a lot of independent spirits who would not be willing to vote for it and also in the senate. they think that raising taxes is an argument not only popular among their republicans to not see that happen, but also some democrats who are up for re-election in tight places. so they think the president chiding them in a way that painted them kind of like schoolgirls because he referenced his own daughters, that hit a nerve and they pushed

back very hard in a coordinated way with a lot more of a personal tone coming back toward the president than we usually hear. so there's a frustration that the president also declined the republicans' offer to come and visit with them. that was something that made the gesture itself may have been for political purposes but now they can also say he didn't accept their invitation. >> we'll have to see what happens when they get back to talks next week. have a great holiday weekend, i hope, off, kelly o. and chuck todd. thanks so much. we'll see you on "hardball" tonight filling in for chris. >> you've got it. see you at 5:00. >> thank you. >> enjoy as pen. >> thank you. what's not to enjoy? leon panetta was sworn in as the new defense secretary taking charge of two wars and facing severe budget cuts under any scenario. here with me now, jane harman, now president of the bipartisan woodrow wilson center. great to see you, jane. thanks so much for being here. first of all, leon panetta

taking on the pentagon, we know there will be budget cuts, he knows where the money is, but he has said today in a very strong message to the troops that he's not going to preside over a hall lowing out of the army. it won't be the fears many of them experienced frankly in the beginning of the '90s, with the beginning of the bill clinton administration. what do you think his biggest challenges are? >> three things about him. first, he knows what he doesn't know. this is not a guy who's going to fake it. and i think people respect him for that. secondly, he has exceptional political skills and is very popular on capitol hill. and the third point about him is this budget cutting expertise. there are ways to cut the defense budget responsibly. there are legacy systems that are defended by members of congress because they create jobs. >> they're in every district. >> sure. and the contractors have been sworn about this. but the contractors can make new things that give us the capability we need now and in future wars, rather than stick

to the old cold war centric acquisition budget. he has the skills to per situate the members of congress and contractors to change and he will be able to cut some of the waste out of the pentagon budget. >> we should point out in previous life he was a congressman from california. >> he sure was. >> so you know that whole -- >> worked with him closely. got one of his bipartisan awards, actually. i was pretty proud of that. >> let's talk about afghanistan, one of the hot wars and the fact that we had the bombing, the attack against the intercontinental in kabul which is a real signal from the taliban and network they can go to a target right in the heart of the capital. if the karzai forces we've been training up can't defend -- they responded well in the emergency, we're told, but if they can't respond in kabul, isn't that a

signal it's going to be a long haul, and maybe there is no legacy end of the tunnel? >> i think the reset of our afghan policy last week by the president was correct. i think it was long in coming. i was never a fan of the surge or the counterinsurgency doctrine. karzai is not a willing partner. last week this mumbai style shooting attack, it could have been worse. i would give the afghans a little credit, but it was staged by the hakani gnat wornetwork, protected group, protected by the pakistani government. that group comes over the border regularly, kills our troops and obviously now is prepared to shoot at big targets in afghanistan. it's a bad signal about how ready the pakistanis are to confront terror networks in their own country. >> jane harman from the woodrow wilson center, thank you very much. and up next here, the arab uprising and the secret weapon

being used to get around governments trying to silence the masses. and still ahead, education nation, the battle over no child left behind in congress. my conversation with arne duncan here in aspen. [ woman ] we take it a day at a time. that's how it is with alzheimer's disease. she needs help from me. and her medication. the exelon patch -- it releases medication continuously for twenty-four hours. she uses one exelon patch daily for the treatment of mild to moderate alzheimer's symptoms. [ female announcer ] it cannot change the course of the disease. hospitalization and rarely death have been reported in patients who wore more than one patch at a time. the most common side effects of exelon patch are nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

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in lithuania today, secretary of state hillary clinton tried to encourage democratic uprising that held so much promise last spring throughout the middle east and north africa. >> it is too soon to tell whether democratic institutions, pluralism and the rule of law will emerge, or if those hopes

will prove little more than a mirage in the desert. >> one key to modern revolution, if preventing regimes from controlling access to new media, there may be hope however in technology as the obama administration tries to help reformers in places like iran and china fight censorship. richard lobo is director of the international broadcasting bureau, an independent agency, and welcome to you. first of all, let's talk about iran, the green revolution. we saw what happened. there were fledgling attempts through cell phones. this was two years ago, and it was completely stifled. how have we managed to work around or trying to work around all this to help the iranian reformers rise again? >> women, first of all, i think more and more people in that region have gotten access to cell phones, to laptops, to mobile devices of all kind and we're trying to capitalize on that. our agency started almost 70

years ago as a radio short wave agency. as people's media habits have changed we've migrated with them and we're finding television and new media are the platforms of the future. we want to be there. so we are developing along with private sector people in this country some very good internet sir customervention tools and we're having a good deal of success primarily in china and iran of all places. we're just doing gangbusters. we have a many program, for example, that we produce on our persian news network, part of the voice of america, it's a half-hour show. >> we've seen it on "the daily show," because jon stewart interviewed these incredibly creative ex-pats, these iranians. >> they try to jam us there, but it's got a great audience and they get us via satellite. but the best news we've had so far and we just announced it ed why, is they have 500,000 youtube friends.

their material each week is downloaded. >> 500,000? i mean -- that's amazing. >> it is amazing, and that's great news for us. we also had a great deal of success during the egypt uprising. we have a network, this country has a network called alhura and they really came into their own during the events in cairo. we had about 25% of the audience there beating many times cnn and some of the other traditional networks. we also found that we could get messages through our television broadcasts to people on the street and tell them what was going on and tell them to go to our website and feed us video, feed us information, give us feedback so we could get that on television. >> how do you counteract the jamming? i know there's technology, but you've figured out ways so these mobile devices can still be used by the rebels in the streets. >> first of all, we have a very small but successful internet c.

>> about seven or eight months ago we got $1.5 million from the state department to help us in our efforts. we have a few companies that applied for grants or for money from us for contracts, and they are now providing people in china, iran, vietnam, all over the world, proxy servers. and virtual private networks they're using very effectively. through traditional media, radio and television, we get the word to the people, to audiences around the world, we have these proxy servers, these vpns available, and they're using them extensively. >> that's great news. i know senator kerry has been a huge supporter and you're getting more money from congress separately as well. thank you very much, we will follow this and do more stories on it. >> appreciate it. thank you for having me. up next, how do you define happiness? a big conversation here with politico's mike allen in aspen next on "andrea mitchell

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here's something new, president obama will hold the first presidential twitter town hall wednesday irks @thetweetup, eeld field questions on jobs. mike allen is here in as pen. this shows what we've been saying all along, twitter is becoming the new form of communication in a very real sense with breaking news. >> it is. one of the first sessions here, the founders of twitter talked about how they no longer see it as a social network, that now they see it as a news source. and so the white house is tapping into that, and as you say, not only reaching a new group of voters, but also it's a way for the president to talk about the economy and jobs in a way that you'll cover it that fewer people would see it if you were just to give a speech.

so this is a way to engage with people where they are, at their keyboards, and the president is going to be able to in real time, we're told, with analytics tools from twitter, see where the questions are coming from, how people are reacting, live online. >> as everything continues to change and as we see all of these dramatic changes, people here are also talking about happiness. now, we're so connected, that there's never a time where we're not on our smartphones or blackberries, how is happiness being defined? you've gone to all these sessions, i've been here with my scripts and we're working away, but tell me about happiness. >> andrea, the aspen idea gives you a chance to immerse yourself in topics that you never would otherwise. if you cover politics you should go to education reform. but the number one after hours buzz has been about the happiness gurus that are here. we have these sessions about the lost decade and about how there can be another financial crisis,

only this time -- people like the fact there was a lighter topic. there was a topic on the neurology of happiness. if we'll, before we go to bed, write three things we're happy about, thankful for, blessed by, we actually will sleep better. >> it's a new form of prayer? >> it -- >> a little prayer, meditation, and this has nothing to do with alcohol. >> the old form works fine, too, by the way. another suggestion they had was take someone you were grateful for, for me it would be my high school teacher, betty brower, reach out to them, write something for them about how they changed your life and present it in person. so there you're making a couple people happy. >> so mrs. kirosi, my english teacher in high school, thank you. and arne duncan, just why do we pay nba stars 400 times what

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topping the headlines right now on "andrea mitchell reports," in minnesota, the state government is closed after legislators missed the midnight deadline to agree on cuts to close a $5 billion deficit. this is the state's second shutdown in six years. four months after the nfl lockout began, negotiators are finally resuming talks to try to get the season back on track. team owners and players worked late into the night and hope to complete agreement as early as today. meanwhile, the nba lockout is just getting started. and with all of that just happening, i sat down with education secretary arne duncan and i asked him about what kind

of money we're paying athletes compared to what we pay our teachers. >> we talk about valuing teachers. what does it say about our society that we're fighting over $7 million for basketball players and you have a goal of reaching 65,000 to $100,000 for teachers. >> i think it says as society we don't value who truly important. we value celebrity, athletes, movie stars. we don't value some of the most important, if not the most important people in our country, those are the teachers who are teaching our children every single day. and my wife and i have a third grade and first grader, they're here somewhere and i do love watching basketball, but i'll tell you, i care a lot more about their teacher than what's going on on tv. >> you're in a fight with house republicans right now over

waivers to no child left behind. there are some governors, republican and democrats, who would like to see these waivers. how do you see that playing out? >> this law should have been reauthorized four years ago. right now the law has lots of per version incentives, lots of disinnocecentives to get where need to go. i have this huge sense of urgency. we have to get better faster than we ever have. we can't have a law on the books holding us back. so if congress doesn't act, they're not prepared to move forward with waivers. these two things don't preclude each other in conflict. if i come in that direction and congress reougauthorizes, i bac off. but just sitting back and accepting the status quo is the worst possible thing. i'm not about to do that. >> i think you said that if there aren't changes made, however it is, whether it's reauthorization, waivers, rewritten, that 80,000 of the 100,000 public schools are going to fail by next fall. >> they're not going to fail they'll be labeled failures.

where schools are really failing no one is challenging the status quo hard enough, but i fundamentally don't think the vast majority of our schools are failing. to label them as failures when they're not is hugely demoralizing, unfair to teachers, unfair to principals, children struggle with that, so why are we going to do something that makes no common sense whatsoever? >> what are you going to do about your goals and your vision in this climate where you've got the president and congress at loggerheads over really tough issues. entitlements. domestic spending. taxes. defense. where does education fit into that mix and your priorities? >> we have to continue to invest, education is an investment, not an expense, but find ways to do more with less. if we sit back and wait until we have a huge influx of resources, we're going to lose another generation of students. so going forward as the economy

improves, should we invest more in education? absolutely. budgets reflect our values and priorities. the worst thing you can do if you have to make a 5% cut is cut 5% across the board. what that tells you, what that tells me is you have no idea which investments make a difference. if you cut 3% of 5%, you should be cutting 100% of some programs and ubl doii doubling down on o making a difference. you see some states and districts in these dutough economic times are being creative and doing other things, others are paralyzed. so this will test leadership. >> in the few minutes we have left, let me ask you a couple of personal questions. who is your favorite teacher? >> i always talk, everywhere i go, my favorite teacher, i went to amazing schools and fantastic teachers, but miss mccampbell. she was amazing. she really pushed us to articulate our ideas in class, never wrong ideas, stress your viewpoints, defend it.

she pushed my writing to a different level, and back then we didn't have computers, so we'd turn in papers in blue ink and i'd get the paper back with more red ink than blue. >> what was your worst subject in school? >> oh, i'm in trouble here. i always joke my worst subject was recess. english and social sciences was ng stro strong not as strong in math and science. >> and if you weren't secretary of education, what profession would be your dream profession? >> well, i've always been so lucky. i've had two passions all my life. one was basketball and one was education. and those are the only two jobs that i ever had. i played basketball for four years, once i graduated from college and since then i've always been involved in education, whether it was running the i have a dream program or working for the chicago public schools and running it and now this job. so all my life i've been able to follow my passions and i feel so lucky to have been able to do

that. >> who has a better game, you or the president? >> i plead the fifth. >> who is your all-time favorite nba player? >> oh, this is getting tough. magic johnson. >> i think a lot of people would agree with that. you think the bulls can make it to the finals next year? >> yes. yes. my son's saying no. yes. absolutely. my son's a die-hard heat fan. so we have a family battle. but i'm a big derrick rose fan. >> and finally, your most important goal as secretary of education. >> it's very simple. the president has drawn a line in the sand. he said by 2020 we need to lead the world in college graduation. one generation ago we led the world. it's not that we've dropped, we've flat lined, we've stagnated, nine other countries have passed us by. everything we do, early childhood education, so

critically important, we didn't talk about that today. k-12 reform, higher education, more access, more opportunity, all of that is behind the goal of leading the world in college graduates by 2020. that's what i want to be held accountable for. >> and my entire conversation with arne duncan will be online, so check that out online. he had a lot more to say about teachers, how he evaluates emthiethem, and hold them accountable for students' progress. president obama's victory in 2008 can be credited in part to his embrace of social media. fund raising and organizational efforts created by the campaign's online guru chris hughes, now being mimicked by others this cycle. chris has moved on from political action to philanthropy, he joins us now in aspen. great to see you. what is your new website, how can you viewers become engaged?

>> it's a really simple web application that helps people find nonprofits and mgos important to them. we have about 15,000 nonprofits from your local community to the other side of the world that are on the platform. anybody can come in. hundreds of thousands of people have, find that nonprofit, connect with it, and hopefully get more involved and take meaningful action on its behalf. >> as one of the original founders of facebook, are you amazed at how this has evolved? how it's taken off, how social media are being held responsible, credited with a lot of the arab uprisings and a real threat to regimes around the world. >> people ask me all the time, did you guys expect this? could you have foreseen this? my short answer is, no way. i think the scale that facebook has achieved and other social media applications as well is just -- it's hard to comprehend. and we see it being used by everyday people to communicate with friends but in political scenarios like you mentioned,

domestically, globally, and then on behalf of colleges and nonprofits as well. so i think it's changing the way we connect to one other and the way we engage with society at large. >> what is the down side potentially to this? you were the wizard behind the social media access the president enjoyed when he was first running and it had a big hart to play with both his fundraising and his political outreach. is the there a down side politicians are less engaged with the public and -- or with journalists who can question them intensively, knowledgeable journalists following political candidates. they can go above and beyond and reach out through social media, and potentially go unquestioned. >> yeah, well, i think it's actually -- it's actually a little bit different than that. what i see is people like president obama who have more access to everyday americans because the technology that's out there. i mean, just in the next couple weeks the president's going to be hosting his first twitter town hall where he'll be taking

questions from everyday people all across the country, all across the globe, which keeps him in a certain sense on his toes. of course there's a real need. >> and there's a white house filter. >> there -- >> a screening process. there has to be. >> but there is no screening process if you go to, the white house, you can see what everybody is saying to the white house today. so to some extent of course the white house still has a bit of control, but on the other hand, you can see a snapshot of the national conversation around, someone like the president, positive and negative, at any moment in time. which i think makes journalism, to get back to another piece of your question, all the stronger. because at this moment in time, you have a lot more information that's available to a professional to sort through, filter and then hopefully tell a larger narrative about what's going on politically. >> and it also helps demock advertidemock

it is a way to reach out to smaller donors. >> i'm of the opinion that our campaign finance system is broken in general and we need to think about how to make it more fair and just. however, i do think with the internet what we've seen is everyday people giving $10, $15, $50, has changed the accountability of politicians on both sides of the aisle and will likely continue it on do that in the next cycle. >> chris hughes, jumo.com is the new venture, thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. and arianna huffington with me here in aspen, how does she rate the president's handling of the debt ceiling talks.

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new newtons fruit thins. real cranberries and cranberry citrus oat... crispy whole grain. newtons fruit thins, one unique cookie. coming up on "news nation," dominique strauss-kahn is now free without bail after a major

decision in the sexual assault case against him. prosecutors say the maid accusing him of sexual assault lied, but her attorney is speaking out in her defense. we have the late details for you. also, up to 12,000 prisoners nationwide are now eligible for reduced sentences, after a federal decision to reform crack cocaine sentencing laws. those penalties were 100 times more harsh for people convicted of crack crimes than those convicted of powder cocaine crimes. why the disparity? jesse jackson will join me live. and arianna huffington coming up next, but first, which political story will be making headlines in the next 24 hours? msnbc contributor chris cillizza joins us on this getaway day. hey, chris, all the candidates hitting the trail, and some actually going to the same place at the same time. >> that's right. amherst, new hampshire, is the place to be. there's a july fourth parade,

you'll see jon huntsman, mitt romney, both there. simultaneously. i bet they'll keep their distance. michele bachmann, kind of the hottest commodity of late in the presidential race, in iowa. not surprisingly. remember, she's from iowa, she was born in waterloo, iowa. it all just goes to show you that there is no holiday weekend if you're running for president of the united states. and you can't get away from these candidates if you live in iowa or new hampshire. you can't hope to be spared from politics, even on july fourth. >> knowing a lot about iowa and new hampshire as you do and as i do, they don't want to be spared from the campaign. >> they love it. >> amherst is a pretty small town. i don't think huntsman and romney are going to be able to exactly avoid each other in the july fourth parade. >> you know what's interesting about that, too, and this won't come out in the parade, but they do have a little bit of a rivalry. they're both from major

well-known mormon families, jon huntsman endorsed john mccain, not mitt romney, in 2008. so there's a little tension there. could make it interesting. >> interesting indeed. have a great holiday weekend. >> you too. >> and we'll see you on tuesday. and thanks to chris cillizza. up next, arianna huffington right here. fresh from a panel she was moderating on the obama presidency. she'll tell us what people in aspen are talking about next. in financial transactions... on devices... in social interactions... and applications in the cloud. some companies are worried. some, not so much. thanks to a network that secures it all and knows what to keep in, and what to keep out. outsmart the threats. see how at cisco.com cisco.

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welcome back to "andrea mitchell reports." arianna huffington is co-founder and editor-in-chieff of the "huffington post," and joins me fresh from moderating a panel downstairs on the obama presidency and you ran up the stairs and avoided the applause and the people trying to shake your hand, so thank you for that. >> thank you. >> and what is the state of the obama presidency? downstairs the people here, and certainly represent his base. his more liberal or progressive base, and are people feeling okay or disappointed or want to

see more? >> well, the discussion which was with the great harvard professor and jeffrey rosen seemed to suggest that the american dream is in disarray, and over 24 million people unemployed or underemploy and the foreclosures and the kids who graduated from college and can't get jobs, and so they very good at articulating the problems and positioning them in terms of morality and basic american principles, but when it comes to policy, and legislation, he is constantly being outmaneuvered by the republicans, so he gives them a tongue lashing, but it is about preemptive surrender, and not prioritizing jobs, but deficit, and that one of the themes of the discussion and one of the things that concerns a lot of fe people who are obviously in the end going to vote for him rather

than whoever the opponent is, but they are concerned about the lack of urgency when it comes to addressing the problems of jobs and the fate of the middle-class. >> at the same time, some have suggested that the president was so tough on the republicans at his news conference as a preemptive shot to make concessions in the deficit talks tom koshgs and concessions that are not going to satisfy many of his liberal supporters? >> well, that is is the pattern, andrea. he gives great speeches. sometimes he, as he did in april. he talks about not extending the bush tax cuts right after he has extended the bush tax cuts, so there seems to be a disconnect between the soars rhetoric and the political actions. >> isn't it the case as you just suggested that people here who have gathered here for this conference from all over the country, all over the world are his supporters and fundamentally even though disappointed in some regard will be voting for him, but what he has to do to is to

reach out to the independents and the moderates who could go either way, and they waare the people who want to see the deficit reduction and control of government spending. >> and the opposition of that is can you really bring down the deficit substantially without being cosmetically without growth? that is the question. and the other question, andrea, what about the people who came out the vote in '08 who may not vote in 2012. i mean, the new voters. the young people, the disappointed people. that's really the question that i think that the white house will have to address. >> to be continued. arianna huffington, thank you for rushing over. great to see you. that does it for us for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports" and on the road live from the aspen ideas festival in colorado. with thanks to all of my friends and colleagues here in aspen, a look next to "newsnation" with tamron hall. >> well, you did a great job

there this week. and now, a law that is controversial that went into effect in kansas and they are set to go before a federal judge in hours. advocates say that the new requirements are meant to keep all women from getting abortions in kansas. and the governor says that the law is about patient safety, and the alleged drunk driver in houston killed a pedestrian and then drove around with the person's body in the car's windshield and that man is set to go before a judge within the hour. we will have an update for you and "newsnation" is back in three. a revolutionary water enhancer. add a little...add a lot. for a drink that's just the way you like it. make it yours. make it mio. ♪ [ male announcer ] you've reached the age where you don't back down from a challenge.

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